19 



another station. There is a great deal of delay in that respect. Probably these cars are 

 lying at the station goodness knows how long — sometimes days — and the cars will not 

 reach the seaboard in time for shipment on the vessel. There is a great deal of 

 unnecessary delay, I think, in a great many if not the majority of cases. Of course, the 

 railway companies claim that they cannot, unless that they have a train-load, afford 

 to run directly to the seaboard. Perhaps that is true. I was proposing that they 

 should run fruit trains on certain days of the week from certain fruit points, for the 

 purpose of reaching the seaboard in proper times for transhipment on certain vessels. 

 The difficulty can be overcome in that way, and in discut^eing it amongst themselves 

 these suggestions can be urged. There might be a remedy to some extent there at 

 all events. I think the railway company, when they look into that matter properly, 

 will be able to provide a remedy to some extent. If they cannot remedy the wrong 

 totally, if the growers and shippers meet them half way or part of the way, we will 

 be doing something. We want them to try and do something. That damage in 

 shunting is a damage we have discussed before. I have mentioned it several times, 

 and that damage continues, and it is a very much more serious damage than the rail- 

 way companies are willing to admit. There is a damage there, and a serious damage, 

 even if the barrels are not battered together or if they are not smashed open. They 

 are, however, frequently broken open. That is a very common thing, and I have no 

 doubt the agents here present will have noticed this at the point of transfer. They 

 will have noticed that on opening the cars and transferring the goods to the vessel 

 that there is scarcely a car without some barrel smashed open. That is done by 

 shunting. There is damage to the fruit in the barrels, owing to rough shunting. We 

 know how roughly they jostle us about sometimes on the passenger cars. We have 

 suggested the remedy adopted in England of using buffers between the cars, and it 

 seems to remedy the difficulty there most thoroughly, and the railway companies have 

 comjjlained of the expense of this remedy. I don't know, but I should fancy it v/ould 

 save them considerable in their own rolling stock, in the damage to their own rolling 

 stock, by the adoption of some scheme in that line, let alone the damage to the goods 

 in transhipment. 



Then there is often delay and very often damage in the transfer from the rail- 

 way company to the steamships. That is a point that has been discussed often, and 

 is a point that some have paid a good deal of attention to. I could mention some 

 steamship companies that have paid a good deal of attention to this matter and have 

 done considerable towards remedying this defect. Still there appears to be a good 

 deal of damage there, which I think, with proper care, might be remedied to a 

 considerable extent. Then a leading point would be this : The accommodation of 

 the steamship companies. I believe there is a point that a great deal can be done 

 with respect to. The fact of the matter is, that the fruit culture of this country is 

 practically at a standstill. Why? Simply because we are not able to take the crop 

 and land it in the markets of Great Britain by means of steamships in anything like 

 the condition that it is when picked or even when it reaches the seaboard. There 

 is great damage on the ship, there is no doubt about that. There is a damage by 

 heating. Now, it is necessary to stick as close to nature as possible, and in order 

 to get a little closer to nature than we used to be, some of us are going to try a new 

 form of barrel, called the ventilated barrel. Some of us who have looked into the 

 matter have great hopes of this barrel. We want proper ventilation for our fruit. 

 We want fresh, air in the compartments of the vessel. That has got to be provided, 

 and this fan system, as I have examined it in some of the vessels at Montreal, seems to 

 me to be a step in the right direction, and will remedy the defect to a great extent, 

 if not entirely. Probably if that system be carried out to perfection it will meet the 

 point perfectly. It is an atmospheric blast that we want. We do not want ice 

 storage. We had a test of that at the time of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition. 

 It carried the fruit well across the ocean, but being an unnatural atmosphere, when 

 the fruit leaves the vessel it perishes more quickly than if it had been all the while 

 in a natural atmosphere. That can be seen by keeping fruit in an ice-house. You 

 will find that when you take it out it will decay much more quickly than it does 



2J 



